


coffee cups and tainted notes

by janetthetrigger



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bad Puns, Claire-centric, F/M, Retrospect, pre-season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 03:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6312718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janetthetrigger/pseuds/janetthetrigger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's too sweet for her to tell him to stop, to tell him to give up, because there's something about knowing he is still looking out for her that keeps her going.</p><p>based on some prompt post about leaving coffee for them to find</p>
            </blockquote>





	coffee cups and tainted notes

_'If I had a nickel for every time I saw someone as beautiful as you, I’d have five sense.'_

She was pretty sure he actually meant ‘cents’ and not ‘sense’ but she was also one hundred percent sure that it was one of the lamest things anyone ever said, or rather, wrote. Also surprising that he could fit all of it on a coffee cup. Neat little scroll of purpose and deep etching. She snorts.

Claire knew there was no use in wondering the how of Matt Murdock, only acceptance that he could somehow enter her well populated workplace and drop off a cup of coffee without anyone noticing. 

It’s not long after she tells him that she can’t be with him when they start showing up. He’s intruded in her life enough she supposes the gestures must be a bit of his Catholic guilt getting the better of him.

_'Are you religious? Cause you’re the answers to all my prayers.'_

This ironic and almost gleeful side of him is one Claire isn’t as familiar with, doesn’t touch anything difficult in her moral code like the rest of him does. She imagines this other Matt sometimes and wonders if things were different, what the two of them would be like together. 

In time he would probably wear her down. Dig into somewhere she doesn’t expect and bury himself inside her heart, a little bothersome aching grin every time she thinks about him. The coffee cups touch that empty part of her, where she knows he occupies even against her better judgement. A burn that’s settled somewhere she can’t name without feeling vulnerable.

She should tell him to stop but something about feeling noticed is encouraging, puts her day in such an upswing she feels almost breathless. An aching grin that is burdened with something tainted.

_'I was blinded by your beauty, so I'm going to need your name and number for insurance purposes.'_

Sometimes he tries different concoctions on her. Claire isn’t one to argue about how the caffeine gets into her system but there’s at least a couple that are cringeworthy. Sickly sweet and layering her tongue in a goo that can only be a chemical compound of disgusting proportions.

She doesn’t know how he knows, but he never brings those back. Usually sticks to dark. Imagining him ordering the sweetest of concoctions is humorous and often worth the cringing that comes with downing the beverage. 

Claire wonders what kind of coffee he actually drinks. A self satisfied smile at that thought of something loaded in sugar.

_'Are you from Tennessee? Cuz your the only ten I see!'_

The occasional typo aside, they are hotter than hell, never lukewarm, and it’s a surprise to think that she only misses him by moments. That he is somewhere nearby and probably watching, like a creeper. A watcher in the woods. His own private pity party on the sidelines of life. Pining away.

He is a glutton for punishment and Claire has no patience for that attitude. If he ever stuck around, she probably would tell him to grow up and stop beating himself up, but he seems to know without the lecture. That guilt all mixed up with his other guilt. A guilt cocktail of his own making.

There’s still something to be pitied in the messages, that flirty and carefree Matt pouring out the cracks of the sad and lonely Daredevil, a version of himself that is somehow artificial and more genuine at the same time. 

She’d like to at least tell him that she sees him. That she knows he is suffering. That she recognizes a desperate plea for acceptance when she sees one. It would not be a good idea on her part to start that conversation though. Knowing how he tastes and that deep burn of a grin in her heart. Dangerous and traitorous thoughts running away together. 

_‘If you were a booger, I'd pick you first.’_

Exhaustion clouds many of her days, she can’t remember having a life outside her job and doesn’t seem to mind. Purpose drives her to wake up at the buttcrack of hell and keeps her going and going and going until she collapses. Long shifts blur into longer shifts. 

She wonders what they would diagnose her workaholicicism as, a need to feel fulfilled? A death wish? Feeling inadequate? Probably not that. Inadequacy was really only in the mind. Bright smiles on little faces and tears of relief are powerful motivators for Claire. She finds comfort in the routine of the hospital’s unpredictability, her vision widened to see how she fits best in the puzzle. 

The immediate is so clear to her, so easy to see and bright with possibility. The future is fluid, the same bright possibilities too much to distinguish and unnecessary when so much of her energy is taken up with the now. She belongs to this place, to the people she helps everyday, to her coworkers, and the immediate at homeness she feels in the space is such a powerful pull.

_Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk by again?_

Sometimes he can’t help himself. He can’t get himself to fade into memory. Maybe she’ll always be a permanent ‘almost’ and never a certainty, but something in him craves the knowledge that she is still a part of his life. 

It’s such a dumb and small thing compared to how much space she takes up in his mind, something he actively fights to stem knowing and respecting her decision to not be with him. He knows she would tell him to stop if it really bothered her and so he lets himself die a little inside just to cause that tiny unconscious grin that lights her face at his terribly inadequate gifts. His tiny part of supporting her calling. He can’t fix the world’s problems, he can’t fix Hell’s Kitchen, but he knows he can get Claire Temple to smile if he gets her a coffee and writes something completely idiotic.

He’s only had to abandon one for his own unconscious stupidity, his own honesty trying to get the best of him. She doesn’t need to know. He doesn’t deserve the opportunity to tell her

In the back of her mind she knows that Matt loves her. 

In the farthest reaches of her conscious she knows she loves him back. No amount of coffee will fill that void.

**Author's Note:**

> This has no beta, if you see something that bothers you feel free to let me know.


End file.
